Activities to Teach Pronouns to First Grade Students

You are about to teach pronouns to your first graders, and you cannot seem to come up with new and fun activities for them! Well, don't fret. Here are some ideas you and your kids will surely love!

Fun activities. Pronouns. First Grade. Hhhhmmmm.... stuck in a rut? If you are experiencing one of those mental blocks again, no need to worry, for you have just come across a collection of ideas you can use to teach pronouns to those young students of yours, while having fun as well!

First graders are natural suckers for fun activities. Pronouns in first grade lessons may be something new to many of your students, and must therefore be approached carefully, with the right blend of discussion, activities, and exercises, that can maximize the learning for them. Feast your eyes on the ideas below and start your pronoun lesson plans.

The Pronouns Memory Game

Have you ever played the classic memory game with the use of picture cards? It goes like this:

1. All the cards are placed on the table face-down (or posted on the board in a similar way). The players can be divided into two groups.

2. The groups take turns turning over the cards.

3. Each player gets a chance to turn over two cards. If they do not match, they have to be turned back again so everybody else cannot see. If they match, they stay as they are, with the pictures facing front already.

4. The players must try to remember the positions of the pictures as they were turned over by the others, and then match as many as they can when it is their turn.

Now for your pronouns lesson, you can prepare cards with the basic personal pronouns---he, she, it, they. On the other cards, place pictures of people that match these pronouns. For example, the pronoun "she" matches a picture of a girl while the pronoun "it" matches a picture of a pencil. If you have more pictures, then you can repeat the pronouns so there will be equal matches.

A variation of this game is for you to use nouns instead of the pictures. For instance, the pronoun "he" matches "Andrew" while the pronoun "they" matches "the children".

The Pronouns Scavenger Hunt

Get those active children moving around the classroom, while teaching them to recognize the nouns that specific pronouns may replace! Prepare for this activity by hiding different pictures and nouns around the classroom. For each round, let the students look for those that match the pronoun you will mention. For example, if you say "she" for a certain round, they must only gather pictures of females and nouns that can be replaced by this particular pronoun, such as "sister" and "waitress". You may ask them to stick these pictures and nouns on the board under the corresponding pronoun.

You may want to do this activity by groups too! Assign one pronoun for each group, so that every group will be looking for and collecting different pictures and nouns.

The Pronouns Jumping Game

Jumping is a favorite activity for energetic first graders, so this game will definitely leave them smiling and will make them more eager to participate. Prepare large mats that you can stick different pronouns on. This time, you can include other pronouns aside from "he", "she", "it", and "they". Each group must have a "jumping mat". The players in a group can take turns. For each turn, write or show a sentence on the board, with an underlined noun that must be replaced with the correct pronoun. In just five seconds, the player must then jump on the right pronoun to earn a point for his group. Let the groups race to 10 points or any number of points you wish for them to achieve.

Done perusing these ideas for fun activities? Pronouns first grade lessons will then be a breeze! Just imagine those kiddos enjoying themselves so much that they forget they are actually learning, and you will certainly become motivated yourself. Good luck!